Bob Braun. Hey, New Jersey: You people wanted him, you people got him.
Bob Braun retired from NJ's Star Ledger short of his 50 years there. I kept up with his columns on the harm being done to education in the name of reform. Now I follow his personal blog.
In a recent post he let fly on Chris Christie's win. He spares no one at all. He does not spare the Democrats who supported him. His reference to "you people" actually came from Christie's own mouth when he told a teacher he was "tired of you people."
Actually at least 50 Democrats supported Christie
From his blog on November 6.
Hey, New Jersey You people wanted him, you people got him.
Barbara Buono was treated by New Jersey’s Democratic leadership as if she suffered from a contagious disease. She had one—she was a woman unafraid of Chris Christie in a state where many men leading the Democratic Party hid behind the big man’s shadow.
Courage has got to be stamped out before it spreads—and Christie and his Democratic tail-waggers got a big start Tuesday night.
About 400 people, maybe half of them professionally indifferent media types, crammed into Novita’s in Metuchen Tuesday night to bear witness to the conclusion of, in its way, the biggest political sellout since the end of Reconstruction gave us Jim Crow laws. Sorry, that’s not an exaggeration— by betraying Barbara Buono, New Jersey’s Democrats have unleashed on the nation a right wingnut who will campaign as an oxymoron, a Republican moderate. And could become president.
If Chris Christie, someone who couldn’t be re-elected freeholder, whose brother bought him the US Attorney’s office, who used the machinery of federal prosecutions to eliminate his rivals, who incited hatred against teachers and other public employees, who presided over unemployment and property tax increases, who made the poor poorer and the rich richer, who made publicly abusing women a new professional sport in New Jersey—becomes president of the United States, we have one group to blame:
The leadership of New Jersey’s Democrats.
In October from his blog Braun also went after his former paper for endorsing Chris Christie.
Braun unleashes on Ledger
Bob Braun, legendary former columnist for the Star-Ledger, didn't appreciate his former employer's endorsement this past weekend of Gov. Chris Christie.
Braun, who left his job at The Ledger at the end of June, just short of the 50-year service mark, wrote a scathing reaction piece on his new blog to the editorial page's support for Christie...
"What is extraordinary about today’s Star-Ledger editorial endorsing Chris Christie is that it invites readers to follow an immoral—or, at least, amoral—path: To vote for a man its anonymous author points out is 'hostile to low income families' by raising their taxes and 'sabotaging' affordable housing. The writer asks us to vote for a man who is a 'catastrophe' for the environment and 'fraudulent' in his budget. The newspaper concedes he is destroying our independent judiciary. New Jersey’s largest daily further asks us to embrace someone who is at least borderline corrupt because he made sure a friend won a no-bid state contract.
The newspaper fails to mention other failures, including the loss of $400 million in federal education funds, the blunder of canceling the tunnel project, his opposition to Obamacare, and his support from the Koch brothers, men who are destroying democracy as we know it. Typically for this newspaper, it finds Christie’s uncivil and obnoxious behavior 'entertaining.' It’s not. It’s beneath the dignity of a great state. Anyone who suggests taking a bat to a woman or calls a critic a 'jerk' or 'numbnuts' does not deserve serious attention much less high office. He deserves to be sent back to Morris County for another try at the freeholder board.
It's nice to see someone lay the truth out so clearly, even if it is from a personal blog and no longer in his position with the newspaper.
Bob Braun's Twitter feed
Crossposting this at Twitter
= new reply since forum marked as read
it was that widespread. I guess I thought this was a one time thing that Dems did for favors perhaps.
That's a shame. 
the opponent tried to hire me away with money a few times, and I declined. The last time he did, I tried to lose him by saying I was running late- he walked home with me. When I said my goodbye, he said "So this is where you live? It would be a shame if anything happened to this building." There had been many buildings going up in flames, and lives lost in the past ten years before that, because landlords wanted all tenants out to go condo. He was menacing about it- and it did frighten me. He won, ended up having a fist and bat fight with his son on main street of town (he was cheating with his son's girlfriend) eventually landed in jail for corruption, and had brain cancer, and survived it all. Don't even ask me what happened with the machines on election day- some machines were delivered unsealed with votes on them already, and pollworkers insisted it was okay. I never saw so many laws broken in one day. Crazy.
At a debate, his campaign manager called my candidate a "Kike" and when someone called him on it, his response was to pretend someone else, called him "A Wop". That was at a public meeting, with three reporters- and no one told the story straight- they acted as if they could not tell who said what when only "Kike" had been yelled out.
The FBI has video of voter fraud that was crazy obvious, we have no idea what info they got in order to not prosecute that. People who work in the school system and live in public housing are regularly pressured to work on campaigns or loose their jobs. Campaign workers are paid 50$ to vote three times under phony names. People go into local hospitals and come out with dozens of absentee ballots from people who are unable to speak or write, because they are currying favor. Hundreds of votes are phony, people who moved out of town, and the Dem poll workers create distractions so the votes do not get challenged. Everyone knows this stuff goes on. We have a great mayor now, because another one was sent to jail, and she seceded him as head of the city council.
But basically, we were so solidly Dem, and had so much money pouring in for development, that things in the Dem party got very corrupt, and no one could get elected without "the machine's" approval. Anyone who follows politics knows this crap happens, and I really think that, coupled with increased wealth and Wall St influence, has been turning bits of NJ redder and redder. Buono was too honest to thrive in this environment. The machine wanted someone who would wring all the money and power out of the situation, and hopefully kick back some to them. It is a shame.
gives me a chill. I know that stuff happens, but NJ is such a big scale thing. When we were active during the Dean campaign we lost any naivete we had about politics. We were at ground zero so to speak of attempts to neutralize his influence. So I guess I am not surprised. Thanks for the post.
If Ralph Kramden was evil instead of just a blockhead.
I've Got a Big Mouth Mary Pat! A BIG Mouth!
Ha ha. Love it.